Veterans share lessons about war with Syracuse middle schoolers

Syracuse, NY -- Some students learn about war from textbooks or the media.

The eighth graders at Expeditionary Learning Middle School learned about war this year from men and women who fought and survived America’s conflicts from World War II to the present.

For the past four months, children at the Syracuse City School District school have interviewed veterans, read books, prepared narratives, written scripts and made posters. They toured the Onondaga County War Memorial, too.

Tuesday, they will present their work, “Through the Eyes of Our Veterans,” at the War Memorial’s Memorial Hall. Students stationed in pairs around the hall will form a living history museum, many assuming the characters they wrote about as the result of their research.

The presentations are free and begin at 6 p.m.

“It’s pretty much an honor for us to honor them, because most of the time the only thing they get honored by is Memorial Day,” said Corey Hickey, one of approximately 40 ELMS students who explored war, guided by 23 teachers from across the academic disciplines.

The veterans who gave them interviews — between 20 and 25 people contacted through a network of teachers and friends — did not hold back.

One, an African American, told classmate Shelina Johnson about his qualms fighting in Vietnam, a war he felt unjust, for freedoms that he did not necessarily enjoy in an America still working its way through the Civil Rights movement.

“They would tell us how hard their training was,” student Kyla Jaquin said. “The ones in combat would tell us what they saw and heard and what happened and what they felt about it.”

The project, designed as part of the school's 20th century history curriculum for eighth graders, evolved as the students dug further, social studies teacher Rich Richardson said. The children chose fields of concentration representing the experiences of veterans, people on the home front and people native to the the war zone, or the technology of war.

Students and teachers alike grew from the experience, Richardson said.

“My meaning of duty has changed,” Johnson said. “I think before, duty was like a job, you just had to do it. But after I interviewed my veteran and after I studied and researched more about the different types of wars and conflicts, I think that duty now means, ‘Willing to do something even though it might have to come at a sacrifice.’”